


Children of Yesterday

by Lines_of_Pain_and_Glory



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M, POV First Person, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-29
Updated: 2014-07-29
Packaged: 2018-02-10 20:45:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2039514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lines_of_Pain_and_Glory/pseuds/Lines_of_Pain_and_Glory
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gellert through Albus’s eyes: 1899, 1945, & 1997.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Children of Yesterday

At sixteen, he had the body of a seeker: compact and sinewy. He wouldn’t hide it away under robes. He wore only a loose shirt with the top three buttons undone and snug trousers slung low on his hips and tucked into red dragonhide boots.

At sixteen, his hair was blonde and wavy and always falling in his eyes. He said it made him look roguish; I said it made him look foolish and vain. His eyes were hard and bright. They flashed like steel when he was angry, but, at sixteen, he hardly ever was. Usually he was laughing, light and clear like bells, and even when he wasn’t I could hear the amusement bubbling in his voice just under the surface. 

At sixteen, he tasted like wine and chocolate.

At sixteen, I loved him.

 

At sixty-two, he tasted like blood and smoke. He no longer needed to lean up to kiss me and it surprised me, though it shouldn’t have. Sixteen was young, sixteen was a child. Eighteen was a child. We liked to think ourselves better than children then, but that only served to prove the truth of our naiveté.

At sixty-two, his hair was as much silver as gold. He made no attempt to hide the slash from his forehead across his eye and down his cheek with it. He joked that it made him look roguish. I ran my fingers over the jagged scar and couldn’t find the heart to call him foolish.

At sixty-two, his eyes were hollow, his laugh bitter, his hands sandpaper against my skin. 

At sixty-two, I knew better and still I loved him.

 

At one hundred and fourteen, he was thin and frail and his hair was like the snow that never ceases to fall on Nurmengard. He still wouldn’t put on robes. He said he was used to the cold. 

At one hundred and fourteen, his eyes were clouded and his laughter rasped against his lungs.

At one hundred and fourteen, I confessed I loved him still and he called me an old fool, his gnarled fingers caressing the blackened rotting flesh of mine for the last time.


End file.
